


we'll hold each other soon in the blackest of rooms

by devereauxed



Series: Roisa Fic Week Summer 2017 [3]
Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: 3x03, Angst, Canon Compliant, Claustrophobia, F/F, Missing Scene, Roisa Fic Week Summer 2017, Submarine Fic, anxiety attack, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 14:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11488464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devereauxed/pseuds/devereauxed
Summary: Luisa needs space - something she can't get on a submarine.Missing scene between Luisa waking up and Rose and Luisa's conversation in 3x03.Day 3 - Space.





	we'll hold each other soon in the blackest of rooms

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up angsty as hell. Not even sorry. 
> 
> There's a lot of possibly triggery claustrophobia and anxiety attack stuff in here so be warned and be careful. 
> 
> Let me know if you like it!

“Luisa, please!”

“Rose just stop! I need…” she took a deep breath, trying to quell the panic rising within her. “I just need you to give me some space!”

She could almost hear the wheels turning in Rose’s head, even through the door. 

“But-“

“Please!” 

There was quiet on the other side of the door. 

“Fine,” came the terse reply and she heard footsteps echoing down the hall. 

Luisa sighed in relief and collapsed to the edge of the bathtub. When she realized where she was sitting a fleeting smile crossed her face. Only Rose would put a bathtub for two on a submarine. 

She glanced around the room. It was rather nice for what it was. It was small, the walls metal and bolted together like the rest of the sub, but Rose had clearly gone to great lengths to make it seem at least somewhat welcoming. Overly luxuriant towels hung nearby, a plush bathmat lay under her feet, an array of creams and soaps lined the wall behind the sink. Warmth shot through her chest when she noticed her brand of shampoo in the shower, surprised and touched that Rose would not only notice but remember the kind of shampoo that she used. 

Suddenly everything caught up to her. 

Rose was alive. Rose was Susanna. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. They were in a submarine for god’s sake. A glorified tin can in the middle of the ocean.

It was too much. This was all too much. Her chest tightened. She couldn’t breathe. No matter how nice the room was, it was still too small, the entire thing was too small, the walls felt like they were closing in, there was no space, she could feel the water pushing in from all sides, it was too much pressure. She was sure she was going to pass out. 

She started to take gulping breaths, gasping loudly for air, slamming her hands to the side of the tub. She heard Rose’s footsteps rushing back down the hall. 

“Luisa?”

She couldn’t answer. There was no air. She couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. 

“Luisa please open the door.” 

She couldn’t move. Pressing a hand to her chest, Luisa gasped, pulling in as much air as she could. 

“I know you wanted space, but I need to know if you’re okay.” Rose sounded stricken, as though she was barely controlling her own panic. 

Luisa wanted to call out to her, to tell her to come in, to tell her that she needed something to hold onto that wasn’t steel. But try as she might she couldn’t get the words out, sounds faded in her throat with groans and gurgles. 

The room began to spin, and her vision blurred.

Then suddenly Rose was there. Vaguely in the back of her mind Luisa realized she must have kicked in the door. 

Rose slid to the floor, her back to the wall, gently pulling Luisa to her and letting her settle between her legs, her back against Rose’s stomach. 

“I’m here,” Rose said into her ear. “You’re not alone.” 

She took Luisa’s hands in hers, rubbing them gently. 

“Remember how it goes?” Rose continued. “Count to four? In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

Luisa struggled to pull in a breath, making it to two before she coughed and spluttered. 

“That’s okay,” came Rose’s voice, warm in her ear. “Keep going.”

She took in another breath, making it to three this time. Her head still spun, but her vision was beginning to sharpen again. Over and over Luisa counted her breaths, Rose’s voice her constant companion. As her mind began to clear she focused on the warmth of Rose behind her, unsurprised that Rose remembered the drill. This wasn’t the first of Luisa’s panic attacks she had been witness to. 

Luisa could feel her heart rate slowing with each breath she took, focusing on Rose’s voice as she murmured in her ear. In theory this shouldn’t make her feel better – Rose was entirely at the root of this whole thing – but it did. Rose always did have a talent for making her feel exactly the opposite of what made sense. 

“Scale of one to ten?” Rose asked, once again falling back on their old system. 

“Nine before. Four now,” Luisa bit out, closing her eyes. The walls still seemed to be bearing down on her, the metal somehow taunting her. 

“List the periodic table,” Rose said suddenly.

“What?” Luisa huffed what would have been a laugh if she were capable. 

“I know you know it. Tell me.”

Luisa took another deep breath, seeing the letters behind her eyes. 

“Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium.” She swallowed hard. She could see the next element in line before she said it, and she focused her attention on the elements waiting to be said rather than the pain in her chest and the dizziness in her head. 

“Then?” the other woman prompted quietly. 

“Boron. Carbon.”

She felt Rose move her hands to her wrists softly. “Keep going,” Rose whispered. 

“Nitrogen.”

Rose pressed down firmly in the middle of each wrist and Luisa yelped. 

“It’s okay,” Rose told her, soothingly. “What’s next?”

“Oxygen,” she gasped, her brow furrowed at the pain in her arms. Then, suddenly, she felt her shoulders relax, ever so slightly, the furious pounding of her heart slowing. 

Five minutes and twenty elements later, Luisa’s muscles finally allowed her to fully relax back into Rose, who wrapped her arms loosely around her, clearly wanting her to have both comfort and room to breathe. 

“That was a bad one,” Rose said quietly. 

“Yeah, well, I think it’s to be expected,” Luisa said, bitterness creeping into her voice. Rose just leaned her chin onto Luisa’s shoulder, uncharacteristically quiet. Luisa knew that Rose wasn’t going to apologize, not even for the trauma she had put her through, but her acquiescence in that moment said plenty. 

After a moment Rose placed a soft kiss to her hair. “Do you want to go back into the other room?”

Luisa shook her head. The idea of moving through the tight halls of the submarine made her stomach clench. “Not yet.”

They sat in silence, Rose rubbing soft, soothing circles on Luisa’s stomach. 

“So be honest,” Luisa said. 

Rose’s fingers paused on her skin, waiting. 

“You learned pressure points from Xena didn’t you?” Luisa asked and felt Rose laugh against her, tightening her hold on her. 

“Well,” she said, her voice husky. “I do have many skills.” 

Luisa laughed. In moments like this she could almost forget the last few days, months, even years. This was always the problem when it came to her and Rose – if she had Rose’s skin against hers, her voice in her ear, then nothing else seemed to matter. 

“I think I’m ready now,” she said softly. 

“Are you sure?” came the soft reply. Luisa nodded and pushed herself away from Rose. 

As they stood, Luisa’s head began to spin – it was those fucking walls. They seemed determined to remind her how little space she had to move, how little air to breathe, just how far beneath the world they were. 

Before she could spiral into another attack, Rose was wrapped around her again, her hands covering her eyes. Luisa’s chest heaved as she fought against the edge of panic. 

“I’ve got you,” Rose said gently. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this room, Rose,” Luisa said, her voice laced with fear.

“I’m going to get you out,” she responded. “Do you trust me?”

“How am I supposed to answer that now?!” Luisa responded desperately. 

“Do you?” Rose pushed, gently. 

The smaller woman paused. Then, “Damn it. Yes. Okay? I trust you. Somehow.”

She felt Rose smile against her neck. “Okay. Follow my lead.”

Rose urged her forward and they took a tentative step together, Rose’s hands still covering Luisa’s eyes. After a few awkward steps they found a rhythm and made it out of the bathroom and into the hall. Luisa could feel the change in the air, the narrowness of the hall bearing down on her. She froze. 

“Lu, remember that night? In the pool?” came Rose’s voice, tethering her. 

Despite her panic, Luisa smiled faintly. “You think I’d forget?”

“Do you remember how warm it was?” Rose continued. “The way the water felt on our feet?”

Luisa gave a slow nod, her mind easily taking her back to that moment. 

Rose kept talking. “I remember that you weren’t even touching me yet but I could feel you. It was like you were under my skin. You kept giving me that look, god, those eyes of yours are like a drug. All I could think about was feeling you against me.”

“Don’t stop,” Luisa whispered. 

“I don’t think I would have been able to keep myself from kissing you if I tried,” the other woman said. “And then once I did I couldn’t stop. I never really could, could I?”

Luisa was vaguely aware that Rose had slowly started moving her forward again, but she was lost in the voice in her ear. 

“Do you remember how it felt, Lu? I’ll never forget it. That first moment of you under my hands, it’s like it’s burned into my skin. Even all of these years later I still feel you. No matter where I go I take you with me.”

Luisa’s breath caught in her throat. “Rose.”

Rose was quiet for a moment. “We’re here,” she whispered, moving to pull her hands away from Luisa, but Luisa caught her arms. 

“No. Please. I can’t look. Not yet,” she begged. She didn’t want to be reminded of where they were now. She wanted to stay in the past, in that one night when possibility lay endlessly out before them. Before her father, before the lies, just them and the water and the fireworks. 

She felt Rose shuffle beside her and heard a click. Rose pulled her hands away gently and Luisa braced herself for what she would see. 

She saw nothing. In the darkness she felt Rose take her hand and gently lead her to the bed, but Luisa pulled back hesitantly. 

“I don’t think I can,” she stuttered. “It’s too much.”

“I’ll behave. I promise,” came the soft reply. “You should sleep.”

After letting Rose guide her back into the softness of the sheets Luisa curled into herself. She wanted to reach for the other woman, to ask her to stay, but she couldn’t bring herself to. There was still so much to say. There was still so much anger and frustration and pain. She couldn’t ask. But – 

“Do you want me to stay?” came the voice from the darkness. 

“Yes,” Luisa whispered. She felt the bed dip as Rose pulled back the covers and settled beside her. “This doesn’t mean anything. I need you to know that.” 

“I know,” Rose responded, her voice measured. 

“There’s so much, Rose. Too much,” she said. 

“Luisa, I know. This isn’t the time. You need to rest. We aren’t doing this now,” Rose replied. 

Luisa felt anger rise in her chest. She wanted to shove at her and tell her that she didn’t get to decide whether it was a good time or not, to scream at her, to make her hurt the way that she hurt, to show her how raw her death had felt, how her father’s death had felt, but before it could truly take root, it faded, leaking out of her and leaving her weak and exhausted. 

“Can you just-“ she stopped. 

“What?”

“Tell me something true,” Luisa said. 

“Like what?” Rose asked. 

“Anything,” she responded. “Give me a part of you that’s real.” 

Rose was silent for so long that she thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then her voice came through the darkness again. 

“You always asked me how I got the scar on my lip,” she began hesitantly. “I told you I fell. But it was more than that. When… when my dad was still alive we used to go to this banyan tree near our house; he called it the Fairy Tree. He told me that the fairies were real and they were listening and if I was good they would help grant my wishes. I would climb all the way to the top and leave them presents, and then I would jump and he would catch me.”

Luisa bit her lip; the fact that Rose had chosen to tell her a story about her _father_ of all things made her both angry and sad. As much as she wanted to lash out she had to believe that there was a point to this. Rose wasn’t cruel, at least not to her. Most of the time. 

“They never granted my wishes,” Rose continued. “But I didn’t care. It wasn’t really about the wishes anyway. But then...after...I went to the tree that night, after Elena told me. I climbed up and I begged the fairies for just this one wish. And then I jumped. But no one caught me.” 

Heart pounding, Luisa tried to make sense of what she was hearing. 

“I landed on a root, split my lip to the gum. When I walked into the house covered in blood, Elena was so angry. Swore up and down that I better make myself useful or I would end up like him. She insisted that the hospital was too risky, and had one of her bodyguards give me stitches without an anesthetic. She told me to remember how much it hurt, that it would make me stronger. I was nine.” 

Luisa was quiet. It was the longest she’d ever heard Rose speak about herself. She’d said so much but there was still so much left unsaid. Try as she might she couldn’t stop herself from imagining Rose, scrawny, all knees and elbows, hair wild and curly, begging for help, and jumping into a nothingness where no one was there to catch her. 

“I didn’t feel anything after that. Until you,” Rose finished, the last words so quiet that Luisa wasn’t sure she’d heard them at all. 

She’d asked for something real, but she hadn’t expected this. She didn’t know what to do. As much as she wanted to reach for Rose, she couldn’t. In that moment her anger shouted down her desire. 

“Thank you,” Luisa said simply. Rose was silent. 

As exhaustion claimed her, Luisa realized that in the darkness the room no longer seemed small. The space before her stretched out limitlessly and she wondered if by the end of whatever it was they were doing there it would feel less like a prison. Maybe they were jumping into nothing together, hoping to be caught.


End file.
